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Colm Meaney
Colm Meaney is the Irish actor best recognized by Star Trek fans for his portrayal of Chief Miles O'Brien on both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from through . He also played Albert Macklin in the acclaimed episode "Far Beyond the Stars". On TNG, he appeared in fifty five episodes. Across both series, he appeared in two hundred twenty-five episodes, second only to Michael Dorn in total number of appearances in the franchise. He is the only actor to have appeared in the pilots and final episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Biography Born in Dublin, Meaney began studying acting at the age of 14. Upon completion of secondary school, he honed his skills at the Irish National Theatre's Abbey Theatre School of Acting before joining the company as a professional actor. After spending eight years touring throughout England as part of various acting companies, he made his television debut on the British television series Z Cars in 1978. He continued acting in various European productions, generally from the United Kingdom, before moving to New York in the mid-1980s to try his hand in Hollywood. He has since launched not only a successful TV career, but has become a highly recognized figure in feature films as well. Meaney married fellow Irish actress Bairbre Dowling in 1977. She and her husband would appear together in a few projects throughout the years, but would ultimately divorce in 1994. Dowling herself would go on to become an alumna of Star Trek, guest-starring in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Spirit Folk" in 2000. At present, Meaney lives in his native Dublin where he continues to star in films made in the United Kingdom. He does, however, make an occasional trip to America to make guest appearances on TV shows. Career The 1980s Meaney's first experience on American television was a 1986 episode of Moonlighting. The following year, he had a brief role in the western TV movie Kenny Rogers as The Gambler, Part III: The Legend Continues, in which his future Deep Space Nine co-stars Marc Alaimo and Ann Gillespie also appeared, as did fellow Trek performers Jeff Allin, Michael Berryman, Tony Plana, Jimmie F. Skaggs, and Dean Stockwell. He also appeared on Remington Steele and Tales from the Darkside that same year. Also in 1987, Meaney made his American film debut in the action drama Omega Syndrome, which was followed later that year with a role in John Huston's critically-acclaimed, Oscar-nominated drama The Dead. Meaney's wife at the time, Bairbre Dowling, also appeared in this film. In addition, Meaney was given the role of Patrick London (replacing actor Stephen Meadows) on the soap opera One Life to Live during the 1987-88 TV season. It was also in 1987 that Meaney first played a nameless conn officer on Gene Roddenberry's new Star Trek series entitled The Next Generation. This officer would ultimately become the transporter chief of the Galaxy class starship ''Enterprise'' and as the series progressed, he would even be given a full name: Miles Edward O'Brien. The 1990s Television Besides his recurring appearances on Next Generation, Meaney continued popping up on other shows as well. In 1990, he was seen in an episode of Father Dowling Mysteries with Fionnula Flanagan. The following year, he appeared in an episode of MacGyver with Time Winters, and in 1993, he appeared on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. After becoming a regular on Deep Space Nine, however, Meaney's guest appearances on other programs came to a halt; in fact, the only episodic TV work he did between 1993 and 1999 when DS9 was in production was to lend his voice to a 1996 episode of Disney's Gargoyles. By doing this, however, he became one of the many Star Trek veterans to lend their voices to this series, joining a list which includes his TNG co-stars Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, and LeVar Burton, his DS9 co-star Avery Brooks, TOS actress Nichelle Nichols, and others such as John Rhys-Davies, David Warner, and Paul Winfield. In 1994, Meaney took leave from Deep Space Nine to appear in the mini-series Scarlett, a sequel to the classic film Gone with the Wind. Stephen Collins, Bob Minor, and Paul Winfield also had roles in this series, as did Meaney's then-wife, Bairbre Dowling. Lastly, in 1999, Meaney and his TNG co-star Whoopi Goldberg starred in the TV movie The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns. Film It was in 1990 when Meaney's film career really took off. In 1990 alone, he appeared in two major hits, Dick Tracy and Die Hard 2. In Dick Tracy, he and TOS guest star Ed McCready played a pair of cops at a restaraunt. However, they were actually only two of many Star Trek actors to appear in Dick Tracy, with the others being Hamilton Camp, Seymour Cassel, Tony Epper, Michael J. Pollard, Bert Remsen, John Schuck, Paul Sorvino, and Ian Wolfe. In Die Hard 2, Meaney played an unfortunate airplane pilot, while Robert Costanzo, Ben Lemon, and William Sadler also had supporting roles. Later that year, Meaney and Becky Ann Baker played Gerry and Merge McGurn in the acclaimed war drama Come See the Paradise, which marked the first of several teamings with director Alan Parker. In 1992, he appeared in four major films: Mike Newell's Into the West, Ron Howard's Far and Away (co-starring Barbara Babcock, Clint Howard, and Anthony De Longis), Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans, and Andrew Davis's action thriller Under Siege (with Bernie Casey and Glenn Morshower) in which he played a terrorist who assists in the takeover of a battleship. Meaney's film credits continued to add up. In 1994, he and wife Bairbre Dowling played a mother and father in the drama War of the Buttons. The same year, Meaney played a doctor of an strange health facility in Alan Parker's comedy The Road to Wellville (co-starring Roy Brocksmith). In 1995, Meaney had a supporting role as "Morgan the Goat" in the British comedy The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. And in 1997, he co-starred with James Cromwell in the family drama Owd Bob and had a memorable turn as DEA Agent Malloy in the blockbuster action-thriller Con Air. Further proving his versatility, in 1998 he played an Irish gangster in Monument Ave., co-starring Famke Janssen, and a gay friend in October 22, in which he appeared with Star Trek: Insurrection actress Donna Murphy. Other notable film credits during this period include Claire Dolan, This Is My Father (both 1998), and the hockey comedy Mystery, Alaska (1999, also featuring Michael McKean), in which he played the over-stressed mayor of the small Alaskan town of the title. Outside of Star Trek, Meaney's best-known roles may be those he played in The Barrytown Trilogy, a trio of films in the 1990s based on the novels of Roddy Doyle. In the first, 1991's The Commitments (directed by Alan Parker), Meaney had a supporting role as the father of Jimmy Rabbitte, the manager of the titular music band. For the next two films, 1993's The Snapper and 1996's The Van (both directed by Stephen Frears), Meaney was the lead actor, receiving top billing. These films helped garner Meaney the on-screen reputation as the quintessential Irish "da" (father), while his performance in The Snapper earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Comedy/Musical). Meaney is the only actor to have appeared in all three of the Barrytown films. The 2000s With production on Deep Space Nine finished, the majority of Meaney's work after the turn of the century has been in films from Great Britain or his native Ireland, although he would continue making appearances in Hollywood productions, as well. Meaney played the title role of the 2001 Irish drama How Harry Became a Tree, which earned him an award from the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA) for Best Actor in a Feature Film. He also had a role in the 2001 direct-to-video release of Backflash (co-starring Mike Starr and Michael J. Pollard). In 2002, he filmed a pilot for a CBS series entitled R.U.S./H., but it did not sell and the series was never made. Later that year, he worked with his TNG co-star Patrick Stewart in Stewart's adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear entitled King of Texas. He went on to play a couple of tough Irish characters in two highly-acclaimed films. In the 2003 Irish drama Intermission (set in Meaney's hometown of Dublin), he played Jerry Lynch, a hard-boiled detective with a fondness for mythical Celtic music who wants the public to know about his fight against street criminals. And in the 2004 British crime thriller Layer Cake, he worked alongside Star Trek Nemesis actor Tom Hardy in the role of Gene, a drug trafficker and the loyal right-hand man of a drug lord who has a passion for guns. Meaney's other film credits include The Boys & Girl from County Clare (2003), Blueberry (aka Renegade; 2004), and Battle of the Brave (2004). Upcoming films include Clean Break and The Metrosexual. On television, Meaney had a recurring role as Cowen in the the Sci-Fi Channel series Stargate: Atlantis, appearing in two episodes in 2004 and one in early 2006. In 2005, he guest-starred as a judge in a two-part episode of ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''; coincidentially this character suffered from the same torn rotator cuff that Miles O'Brien suffered from. Meaney will be appearing on Broadway starting in April 2007 in the Old Vic's production of Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, co-starring Kevin Spacey. Appearances * TNG (all as Miles O'Brien): ** (Season One) ** ** (Season Two) ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** (Season Three) ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** (Season Four) ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** (Season Five) ** ** ** ** ** (Season Six) ** ** (Season Seven) Colm Meaney appeared in all episodes of DS9 as Miles O'Brien except: * ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** (only as Miles O'Brien (mirror)) ** ** ** ** (only as Albert Macklin) ** ** ** ** ** (only as Miles O'Brien (mirror)) External Links * * Meaney, Colm Meaney, Colm Meaney, Colm de:Colm Meaney es:Colm Meaney nl:Colm Meaney pl:Colm Meaney